How Aristotle Can Save Us

In a 1995 speech outlining his "Visions for the 21st Century," the renowned astrophysicist Carl Sagan called attention to the fragility of human civilization, given our infinitesimally small presence within the cosmos.

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Our future, he warned, depends entirely on our learning to live wisely and humbly together. Clearly, we didn't get the message. Three decades on, our "pale blue dot" is riven by geopolitical turmoil, and the late 20th-century hope for an ascendant global liberalism has faded. Faced with such radical uncertainty, the best strategy may be to return to basics. And to explore the most profound of all questions—what is the good life?—there is no better guide than Aristotle, whose Politics and Nicomachean Ethics offer a framework that is strikingly relevant for this age of moral confusion and civic fragmentation.